Key points

  • Bitcoin slipped below $81,000 about two and a half hours after Friday’s US close and touched $80,417.7 on Kraken in the 23:00 UTC hour, its lowest since 15 Oct. It was near $80,850 at 04:00 UTC; Coinbase showed $80,868.
  • The move came in the heaviest hour of Friday’s trading on Kraken, with no headline found to explain it.
  • The map: $81,942.7, the past day’s high, overhead and $84,250 beyond it; $80,417.7, then $79,709.0, below.

The floor held all day. Then the room emptied, and it gave way.

The largest cryptocurrency changed hands near $80,850 on Kraken at 04:00 UTC, about 0.3% below its UTC open of $81,086.2 and about 1.4% below Monday’s open of $82,001.7. Ether was near $2,379, Solana near $102.55 and XRP near $1.289. Friday’s US-close Market Read has the session that set it up.

The break came after hours

Friday’s test of $81,000 came at the US cash open, and the level held. The second test came with Wall Street shut.

In the 22:00 UTC hour, bitcoin fell from $81,286.4 to $80,455.7 on Kraken and traded 158.4 BTC, more than the 145.2 BTC of the US-open hour. On Binance the price crossed below $81,000 between 22:35 and 22:50 UTC, according to market reports.

The next hour set the low at $80,417.7 and then bounced to close at $81,086.2. It did not last. The midnight hour closed at $80,529.9, and since then bitcoin has crept back to the low $80,800s on thin volume: the 02:00 UTC hour traded under 23 BTC.

Seen whole, the week leaned one way. Wednesday printed $84,840.0, the only push above $84,250.

Thursday’s sell-off took bitcoin to $80,813.7. Friday’s after-hours slide went lower still. Lower highs and now a lower low.

The macro backdrop did not help. The Dow fell 1.18% on Friday, the US 10-year yield rose to near 4.99% and Brent touched its highest in more than five months. how bond yields affect bitcoin explains why a 5% 10-year weighs on an asset that pays no yield.

Derivatives are calm, for now

Funding is small and positive. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual showed 0.0054% per eight hours at 03:59 UTC and OKX 0.0027% for the current period, after a last settlement of 0.01%. Deribit perpetual open interest was about $860 million, up from about $850 million at Friday’s US close.

Put simply, open interest is the total value of futures contracts still open; it rising while price falls means some traders added positions into the drop rather than closing them. Implied volatility barely reacted. Deribit’s DVOL read between 37.5 and 37.8, close to Friday’s level.

The 30 Oct monthly expiry dominates the options book. Calls total about 87,601 BTC against 49,483 BTC of puts, a put-to-call ratio of 0.56.

The largest lines are the $95,000 call at about 20,006 BTC, the $100,000 call at 11,286 BTC and the $90,000 call at 10,713 BTC. The biggest put is the $70,000 strike, at about 4,392 BTC.

ETF buyers will not help before Monday. US spot bitcoin funds lost a net $137.9 million on Friday but finished the week $301.2 million positive, per Farside; Friday’s ETF Desk has the fund-by-fund table.

Weekend books are thin. Watch $80,417.7 before you watch anything else.

Chart to watch

  • Kraken’s hourly candles since Friday’s US close: a fall from $81,286.4 to $80,417.7, then a range of roughly $80,500 to $81,100. A clean break of either edge on weekend volume is a signal of intent, not of trend.
  • Overhead: $81,942.7, the past day’s high, then $84,250. Bitcoin has not closed an hour above $84,250 since Wednesday; a sustained reclaim is the line that would turn the week’s structure.
  • Below: $80,417.7, Friday night’s low, then $79,709.0, the 15 Oct low. A sustained break of $79,709 would put $78,000 and then the $70,000 put strike in view.

On the calendar (UTC / local European time)

  • Sat 24 Oct, 10:00-19:00 UTC (12:00-21:00 CEST): Coinbase Derivatives maintenance; futures and perpetuals on Coinbase Financial Markets unavailable, Coinbase Markets said on X.
  • Sun 25 Oct, 01:00 UTC: European clocks go back one hour, from CEST to CET. US clocks change on 1 Nov.
  • Sun 25 Oct, 22:00 UTC (23:00 CET): US index futures reopen for the week.
  • Wed 28 Oct, 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET): Federal Reserve rate decision, after the 27-28 Oct FOMC meeting.
  • Fri 30 Oct, 08:00 UTC (09:00 CET): Deribit monthly options expiry. The Bank of Japan also decides on rates that day.
  • Fri 30 Oct: Coinbase converts EEA retail users’ non-MiCA stablecoins, mostly into USDC.

As of 04:00 UTC (06:00 CEST), bitcoin was trading near $80,850 on Kraken and ether near $2,379. This is market commentary, not financial advice.

Related: Thursday’s First Print

Related: Arthur Hayes says Maelstrom sold its directional book

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.